In this hour of peril Richelieu rose to the height of his genius, and awoke a new and irresistible force as he threw him self on the patriotism of France. With 30,000 foot and 12,000 horse he swept the enemy out of Picardy, while his ally Bernhard drove them across the Rhine, and in 1638 destroyed the imperial army in the decisive battle of Rheinfelden, a victory which opened to him the gates of the key-fortress of Breisach. The unex pected death of Bernhard threw the fruit of his victories into the hands of Riche lieu, whose policy soon bore further fruit in the disorganization of the power of Spain—revolts in Catalonia, and the loss of Portugal; the victories of Wolfen biittel (1642) and Kempten (1642) over the Imperialists in Germany; And at length in 1641 in Savoy also in the ascen dency of the French party. Another tri umph that same year was the speedy col lapse of the Imperialist invasion in the N. by the Count of Soissons, who perished in the first battle.
The hatred of the great French nobles to his rule had never slumbered, however, and Richelieu found safety alone in the king's sense of his own helplessness with out him. The last conspiracy against him was that of the grand-equerry, the young Cinq-Mars, whose intrigues with Gaston, the Duke of Bouillon, and the Spanish court were soon revealed to the cardinal, the center of a network of espionage which covered the whole of France. When the hour was ripe he placed in the king's hands at Tarascon proofs of the traitor ous plot with Spain, and was given full powers as lieutenant-general of the realm. Cinq-Mars and De Thou were at once ar rested, and the wretched coward, Gaston of Orleans, hastened after his kind to buy his own security by betraying his accom plices. Cinq-Mars and De Thou were exe
cuted at Lyons in the autumn of 1642. But the great minister was himself dying in the hour of his greatest triumphs. He faced the inevitable at last with calm tranquillity—when the priest bade him forgive his enemies, he made answer, "I have never had any other enemies than the State's." He died Dec. 4, 1642, be queathing Mazarin to the king as his successor.
Richelieu built up the power of the French crown, he achieved for France a preponderance in Europe, and throughout life he moved onward to his goal with the strongest tenacity of purpose, unmoved either by fear or pity. He destroyed the local liberties of France, and crushed every element of constitutional govern ment, and his policy overwhelmed the citi zens with taxation and made waste places some of her fairest provinces and most thriving towns. Our judgment of him will always differ according as we ex amine his end or his means—the public or the private man. He never sacrificed to personal ambition the interests of his country as these seemed to himself, but he often forgot in his methods the laws of morality and humanity.
The weakest point in Richelieu's char acter was his literary ambition and the extraordinary pains he took to construct a literary reputation. His own plays, for the fate of which he trembled with anx iety, sleep in safe oblivion, but his "Mem oirs" are still read with interest. He founded the French Academy. His Cor respondence and State Papers, edited by d'Avenel, fill eight volumes of the "Col lection de Documents inedits sur l'Histoire de France" (1853-1877).